Reamers of various designs and construction are well known and advantageously employed to enlarge the size of a previously formed hole by an incremental amount, to adjust the size of a previously formed hole to within a tighter tolerance than may be otherwise achieved by other milling tools, and/or to improve the surface finish of a previously formed hole. In some cases, reamers may also be used for the removal of burrs from a workpiece after an initial machining operation.
To maintain a high quality surface finish, reamers are conventionally fabricated using a number of teeth on a working portion, the teeth separated by a corresponding number of flutes extending axially along the length of the working portion. Utilizing straight or helically extending flutes along the length of the working portion permits the evacuation of chips generated during a reaming operation. However, using such a flute design effectively limits available geometries and architectures for reamers, preventing the utilization of designs capable of achieving relatively high material removal rates.
Reamer design continues to evolve in response to the changing demands of hole making applications, thereby calling for the development of new reamer architectures and configurations.